dungeonsfandomcom-20200223-history
Talk:Weapon Training (3.5e Feat)
Question Alright, I noticed this feat a few days ago, and, well, I was feeling bad at the time, so I just gave it a glance, and didn't think twice about it, but, just now, I was looking back and a question popped into my head. Though, before I ask this question, I have to explain what led up to the question, and, before I do that, I must first say a couple of things: #You care about averages, this is necessary for understanding my question. #As shown here, a bonus to 'to-hit' matters most to averages when a 20 is needed to hit without said bonus, where-in, the bonus to average damage spikes. #A lower BAB class is more likely to need a 20 to hit against a speculative AC, since their normal 'to-hit' is worse. #This feat offers a higher bonus to 'to-hit' for lower BAB classes than it does to full BAB classes. #This feat offers a bigger bonus to hit to lower BAB classes than this feat does, to lower BAB classes. #Lower BAB classes, while not always, usually have an above average source of damage. Now then, I've said the few things, there are a couple of extra things that I was gonne add in there, but they weren't necessary. But yeah, next, I'll explain what led up to my question: #By points 2 & 3 above, a bonus to 'to-hit' offers the biggest impact in conjuction with a lower BAB class. #By points 1 in this list, & 4 above, this feat offers a bigger bonus where the same bonus would have a bigger impact. #By points 1 in this list, & 6 above, this feat grants a big increase in average damage where average damage was, more than likely, already above par. #By points 3 in this list, & 4 & 5 above, this feat offers a bigger increase in average damage than this feat, while offering a much smaller increase to full BAB classes. Now, there are a couple of things I dislike about this feat myself, such as the fact that it takes away one reason to take more than four levels in a full BAB class, (since you could have the same bonus to 'to-hit' with just +16 BAB, as with +20 BAB) but they are irrelevent to this question. Now, you clearly stated that you beleived this feat was not balanced on rogue level, yet this feat offers the same bonus (a bigger bonus, in some cases), with the only difference being that this feat offers this bonus only when it would have the largest impact. Now, I've said everything I need to say, I'll just ask the question: Do you like this feat? → Rith (talk) 11:13, November 22, 2009 (UTC) : Yes. --Ghostwheel 06:08, November 23, 2009 (UTC) :: Ghost, I'm not going to call you a hypocrite just yet, and I am hoping that you will explain yourself so I don't have to. Ignoring Rith's points for now, this feat suffers the exact same increase spikes as the other feat you were complaining about, but it suffers them for both BAB 1/2 and BAB 3/4 classes instead of BAB 1/1 classes, which is a larger cross section of the game. This feat is effectively just taking a BAB progression and boosting it to the next level (except for those on the top already), but in doing so it's also giving characters the same damage/hits output boost that you previously said was too strong for a single feat while also potentially breaking the RNG under the same definition you were using before (in conjunction with the same tricks you previously pointed out). Since you were just arguing about the spike and the damage that came with it for the other feat without regard to who was getting it, I'd like to know how this feat avoids the problems you claimed for the other one. I'm genuinely curious to hear how you have this justified as better than the other one, because I can't see it and it looks like all of the same problems you were complaining about, just applied to different people. - TarkisFlux 06:56, November 23, 2009 (UTC) ::: If you'd honestly like to know and understand, then I'd be more than happy to explain :-) ::: To understand my intent, first a little background; I'm going through a semi-private (so far) revision of the system, standardizing it so that you can create creatures with stats that accurately mirror what a PC would have at a certain level, allowing DMs to simply check out according to a table what attack, AC, and so on a monster should have at every level (1-20, at least), and create monsters easily and quickly instead of the problems that 3.x monster creation poses at the moment (calculating HD, ability scores, saves-according-to-HD, number of feats, and so on), as well as a revision of specific parts of the system that can slow down or tear apart gameplay. Where much of Tome games focus on the Wizard level of balance, my variant will focus on the Rogue level balance point. To that intent, I need to also standardize numbers of PCs. This means bringing up the characters with lesser abilities to the level that most PCs will be at. ::: Let's take the barbarian for a moment, and compare it to a rogue. We'll leave out the Ring of Blinking combo for a moment (since that focuses on touch attacks, so you don't really need bonuses to attack for that), and focus on a pure melee rogue who flanks and uses the TWF tree to perform as a "striker". We'll take the example at level 20, since that's when the difference is the most pronounced between the attack/damage of a rogue when compared to the barbarian. We'll assume for the moment an 18 in the primary stat for both characters at level 1, increasing to 34 after items and level boosts. Both characters will have no Weapon Focus, and we'll compare it to them having the Grimoire variant Weapon Focus afterwards. Target AC will be 47-49 (we'll say 48), since I haven't done all the math completely, but that looks like the average AC that monsters will have after the revision against level 20 character. The barbarian will use a +5 Greatsword, while the rogue will use two +5 Shortswords. ::: So, at level 20, without Weapon Focus, the barbarian (while raging, of course) deals 55.5 DPR against said AC, while the rogue deals 22 DPR against 48 AC--not even half of what the barbarian deals. ::: Next, with the variant weapon focus. On one hand, the barbarian's damage increases to 61.5 DPR, while the rogue's damage jumps up to 53 DPR, which is much more comparable. Note that the revision of the system would use my iterative attack variant, so the damage will be considerably higher all around and might even be higher for a rogue with the full TWF tree, but the above is an example of what I mean. ::: Furthermore, as part of the revision, characters with a medium BAB will naturally have a bonus to attacks when performing "traditional" attacks, and it won't stack with this one. Thus, all the feat does it allow them to attack at their highest attack bonus without having to fulfill the requirements based on their class. ::: The difference between the other variant Weapon Focus and this one is that the other one does the opposite of what this one is intended to do. Because it gives a boost to characters who already have a high BAB, it widens the gap between full BAB and medium BAB characters. However, this variant instead works to standardize the system, closing the gap between the attack modifier of characters, thus allowing for better standardization of the system as a whole. If two characters, one with medium BAB and the other with good BAB, take the other variant, the difference in their attack bonus is going to get even larger than it was before. However, this isn't the case with this variant, bringing them closer together rather than farther apart. ::: Furthermore, high BAB is still an advantage with this variant. Higher-BAB characters will be able to apply to some feats more quickly (Combat Brute, Shock Trooper, Robilar's Gambit, Strong Grip, etc), make iterative attacks sooner, have a higher AC (adding a bonus to AC dependent on BAB in the revision), and so on. --Ghostwheel 07:29, November 23, 2009 (UTC) :::: Nitpick: your barbarian numbers are off, one has a 42 strength and one has a 44. Adjusting those down to 42 each means, against your magic AC of 48, that they get an even smaller bonus from the feat than you listed (it's only about 6 points there) and this feat remains a joke for any of the full bab classes, but since you feel that they have, or rather will have, other compensating measures or better things to spend a feat on (which is actually ok with me as long as it's obvious) let's move on to other things. Your response indicates that the output spike itself isn't actually a problem for you, only the people it was going to. But subject to that rather vague restriction (that's probably designed to keep people's numbers together) it's actually ok for a feat to provide a >100% bonus for some data points at the rogue level, at least according to you above. This is exactly opposite what you have claimed elsewhere, and the only reason I'm not calling you out as disingenuous or worse right now is because it's attached to some hypothetical alternate framework that I can't even begin to discuss for lack of detail. Which might be fine in the long run, but in the mean time you should probably put a note on it that it's not intended to be used with the standard framework and should be used with your iterative attack variant at a minimum. Or you should put it at wizard level because the bonus is, in your previous opinions, too large for a rogue level feat. - TarkisFlux 00:15, November 24, 2009 (UTC) ::::: Thanks for catching the Strength--I've got no idea how it slipped into there, and I've corrected it with the right numbers which makes the thing I'm aiming for even better, since it brings the damage output of the rogue and barbarian even closer. ::::: The reason it's a "Grimoire" version is because it's meant to be used with a different system--though I don't really see a problem using it with the standard D&D 3.5, since as I showed before, a barbarian greatly outdamages a rogue who uses flanking to achieve damage at higher levels. This variant's purpose is less concerned with how much (what percent) of increase in damage occurs, and more that the damage is standardized. Furthermore, as I mentioned before, character with medium BAB will naturally get bonuses to attack. The feat simply makes it so that you don't need to fulfill prerequisites to get the bonus. Also, I don't think a 15% increase in damage (what the barbarian in the above example gets) is worthless by any means. Also, the main reason I disliked the other feat is because it widens the baseline of what characters can hit. ::::: For example, we already have the stats from the base barbarian and rogue above. But what happens when you give them both the other variant weapon focus? The barbarian's attack roll rises by 5 for 91 DPR against an AC of 48, while the rogue gets a boost of +4 to 44.5 DPR. As you can see, the barbarian's DPR is still more than twice as much as the rogue's, which isn't a good thing in my mind. ::::: Now, let's take the worst case scenario, where the barbarian and rogue have exactly the same base stats, ability boosts and so forth. The "worst case scenario" involves the barbarian picking up weapon focus, and the rogue not. The barbarian has an attack sequence of +46/+41/+36/+31, while the rogue is at +30/+30/+25/+25/+20/+20. As you can see, anything that the barbarian has a chance of missing is virtually never going to get hit by the rogue, and anything that the rogue has a chance of hitting is going to be virtually automatically hit by the majority of the barbarian's attacks--also not a good thing. ::::: Let me restate the purpose of this variant. It's not to limit the increase in damage. It's not to make it so that Weapon Focus is a worthless feat for full BABers (though that would be a loaded statement). It's to close the gap in damage between characters. Having a really big gap is a bad thing IMO, though you might disagree. As I've shown above, it fulfills this objective remarkably well, bringing the gap from a difference of 60% to 13.8%. The barbarian with the feat is still ahead, but not by nearly as much as he was before, and if the feat is truly "worthless" to the barbarian and he doesn't take it, the gap drops even further to just 4.7%. ::::: That said, you can call me disingenuous (or worse) if you like. You can call me a hypocrite, a liar, or anything else. That doesn't really bother me much, partly because this feat is part of a project that meshes together with the overall structure of what I'm trying to achieve in a very measurable and well-done manner and partly because it doesn't bother me as a person for you to say that since I feel that I'm being genuine and real, and also because saying that doesn't really make my arguments or the numbers behind them any less true ;-) --Ghostwheel 01:36, November 24, 2009 (UTC) :::::: If I were going to call you disingenuous, it would be for the following reason: ::::::* This feat is a >80% increase in DPR at a data point for a set of classes from a single feat. ::::::* This feat is marked as rogue level. ::::::* You previously said these things were not compatible in no uncertain terms. ::::::* You are now attempting to qualify your answer and provide nuance that gets you what you want, and are ignoring the damage boost in favor of some previously unmentioned attempted equalization. ::::::* This suggests that your previous statements were disingenuous (if you left things off on purpose) or simply unclear and incomplete. I have not called you disingenuous yet because I assume the latter in absence of evidence or history of the other. :::::: I didn't bring your numbers up (aside from the correction) because they're not wrong and I didn't want to get into a big picture discussion with you on this talk page. I didn't bring your arguments up because you pulled out an alternate framework in which this could actually work without bringing along the full bab guys and I didn't want to get into the details of that because I have only slightly more than nothing to work with. Also, both are outside the scope of this talk page. All I wanted from this was to know why you did the same thing that you just got done hating on, and your numbers and arguments are an answer to that question that you did not previously explain at all, and at no point was I attempting to suggest that they were suspect or disingenuous. If this was your position all along you should really try to be more clear, because your previous position is directly at odds with your current, more nuanced position. :::::: Look, you didn't complain about the other feat extending the gap in numbers between classes, you complained about it providing a huge bonus to damage and hits. Ya know, like this one does. Spending time complaining that an 80% increase from a single feat isn't rogue level and then making a rogue level feat that gives that boost to a larger portion of the game is hypocritical. I'm not even talking about your numbers or arguments right now, I'm talking about you being consistent with your previous statements and positions. If you had talked about number gaps earlier I wouldn't be babbling on your talk page about how you're doing the exact same thing you spent lots and lots of words railing against. The number gap thing is a consistent position, it's just not the one you espoused yesterday. That's my whole problem with this. Not your numbers, not your argument, just the way that you bemoaned something and then went and did it yourself. - TarkisFlux 02:58, November 24, 2009 (UTC) ::::::: I should add that you have explained why you think this a better feat than the other one like I asked earlier, and I appreciate that. It just annoys me that you did it by pulling points up that you didn't bother to apply against the other one, and if you had done so I wouldn't have gone WTF?!? at this in the first place. - TarkisFlux 03:06, November 24, 2009 (UTC) :::::::: I'm glad I was able to explain myself properly then :-) --Ghostwheel 03:25, November 24, 2009 (UTC)